Tapol, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, Bulletin Online 168, September 2002
Campaigning to expose human rights violations in Indonesia, East Timor,
West Papua and Aceh.
Maluku is now a closed territory
It is conservatively estimated that at least 9,000 people have been killed and 400,000
have become refugees since January 1999 when the communal conflict between
Muslims and Christians began in Maluku. In February 2002, a peace accord known as
Malino II was signed. But it was a top-down accord and violence has since erupted in
several places, notably the bloody attack on Soya in May, bomb attacks on the
governor's office and most recently in the Ambon market place on 27 July.
The Malino II Accord was reached at a time of relative peace. People from the two
communities had shown signs of war-fatigue and despite efforts to provoke conflicts,
they remained localised and were more in the nature of elite conflicts, using extremist
elements from both sides.
This relatively conducive situation was not the result of the Accord but had been
present for many months. Efforts at a grassroots level to reconcile the two
communities had started cautiously and at a higher level with an initiative known as
Baku Bae. The Malino II Accord was defective because it made no attempt to involve
the reconciliation efforts already underway. Important leaders from both communities
took part in the Malino II conference but Jakarta sent several top ministers to control
the discussions. Such high-flown peace conferences are well intentioned but fail to
affect the reality on the ground. Agreement was reached on eleven points but there
has been hardly any follow-up. Two of the commissions set up during Malino II have
never got off the ground.
Impunity
One result of the Accord was the establishment of an independent team to investigate
human rights violations in Maluku and probe the role of the different protagonists. The
team was installed by a presidential decree on 6 June and is headed by retired
Major-General I Wayan Karya, deputy to the Co-ordinating Minister for Security and
Political Affairs.
There is a great deal of scepticism regarding this team as the investigation teams on
other issues in Indonesia have achieved so little. Nine cases have been investigated
since the fall of dictator Suharto, starting with an inquiry into the May 1998 riots, the
Semanggi incidents in 1999 and most recently the investigation into the murder of
Theys Eluay in West Papua. In addition, since the beginning of the Maluku tragedy
not a single perpetrator has been convicted. The existence of militia groups on both
sides is well known and their leaders are high-profile figures. The region has become
increasingly lawless with the military and militia groups playing the dominant role.
One of the aims of the Maluku investigation team is to conduct an inquiry into the role
of RMS (the Republik Maluku Selatan, South Maluku Republic) and groups related to
this movement. Human rights campaigners like Orry Rachman from Kontras question
this focus and insist that the team should concentrate on discovering why a small
incident back in January 1999 could have sparked such a relentless sectarian conflict.
The hard core of RMS activists in Maluku played no role of any significance in the
conflict. The RMS movement declared independence on 25 April 1950 and the
government of the day took strong measures, sending many troops to Ambon. The
military wing of RMS was defeated but it fought a guerrilla war till the mid-sixties. The
military struggle ended with the capture of RMS leader Soumokil and the political wing
continued to thrive in the Netherlands where many Malukans have been living since
1951. RMS presence on the ground in Maluku has been virtually non-existent! until
quite recently.
FKM and Laskar Jihad
Since June 2000 Maluku has been under a civilian emergency, the only region in
Indonesia to fall under this category. Early in 2002 the authorities n Jakarta concluded
that the security conditions has not improved and toyed with the idea of going one
step further by declaring a military emergency. But things have been resolved
somewhat differently; Maluku remains under a civilian emergency but Kodam
Pattimura, the regional military command, has been upgraded and is under the
command of Major General Djoko Santoso who was previously commander of the
second division of Kostrad, the army's Strategic Command, Indonesia's best trained
and most heavily equipped outfit.
With the creation of Opslihkam, (Operasi Pemulihan Keamanan, Operation to Restore
Law and Order) as an umbrella, the military have assumed virtually unlimited powers.
Under these powers, the police force (which, in theory, is in charge of law and order)
have been placed in a subordinate position. The military have closed the territory to
outsiders and frequently conduct door-to-door searches.
It is now clear that Jakarta, especially after the Malino II agreement, has concocted a
scenario behind the scenes. Two organisations, FKM (Front Kedaulatan Maluku,
Maluku Sovereignty Forum) and Laskar Jihad (Jihad Warriors) have been selected as
the main culprits. Two FKM leaders, Alex Manuputty and Semmy Weileruny, and the
chairman of Laskar, Jihad, Jafar Umar Thalib have been arrested and are expected to
go on trial soon.
The FKM and Laskar Jihad have been chosen as scapegoats. They fit neatly into the
Jakarta scenario as the main cause of the conflict. But Maluku watchers have
recognised that this scenario as a sham. Neither of the organisations existed at the
beginning of the conflict; it was only after a year that FKM came into existence while
Laskar Jihad, primarily an organisation based in Java, started sending hundreds of
so-called volunteers to Maluku in April 2000.
The FKM came into being as a small group of discontented intellectuals who became
increasingly frustrated with the role of the security forces and militia groups in fanning
the conflict while the central government watched on the sidelines. But FKM made a
political switch and adopted the same position as RMS, based on what it claims is
the legitimacy of the independence declaration in 1950. The FKM has become widely
known in Indonesia, but mainly for negative reasons and has failed to win popular
support. It is seen as a reincarnation of the RMS backed by Christians, giving radical
Muslims a pretext to attack FKM/RMS as a Christian ploy to establish a separate
republic.
Laskar Jihad arrived in Ambon in April 2000 for similar reasons, complaining of no
action from the central government, no protection for the Muslim masses from
Christian militias like Laskar Kristus. A few thousand volunteers are now active
members of Laskar Jihad in Maluku. The majority are involved in social work while
about 20 per cent are armed militias. Some well-known military hardliners like Djadja
Suparman have supported Laskar Jihad and are responsible for its radical,
nationalistic line. A nationalist Muslim movement is a new phenomenon in Indonesia
and is an oxymoron.
FKM and Laskar Jihad are a highly combustible mix and reflect the extreme
tendencies within the fractured Malukan civil society. It is no coincidence that the
authorities are pinning the blame on both organisations as the main cause of the
conflict.
Intra-military conflict
From the onset of the Maluku conflict, the role of the military and militia groups has
been more than obvious. Analysts argue that the eruption of the Maluku conflict into a
full-blown communal conflict is the master-stroke of some top army generals in
Jakarta. The conflict erupted in Maluku at a time when the army's political influence
was at its lowest point. The collapse of the Suharto regime and the use of brutality by
the security forces against students had eroded the influence of the military. The
eruption of violence in Maluku was a godsend for the military to prove their
indispensability. Instead of being seen as part of the problem, the security forces
became part of the solution.
This is only part of the story and part of the truth. The longer the communal conflict
has continued, the more complicated the contradictions have become. Military and
police personnel increasingly took sides in the conflict. Christian soldiers joined the
ranks of the Christian militia while Muslim soldiers joined the Muslim militia. A few
hundred security officers from both the military and police, have gone AWOL and have
deserted to one or other side.
Sometimes conflicts between units of the security forces erupt because of different
strategies. On 14 May, there was a shoot-out between a platoon of Kopassus (army
elite troops) and a team of Brimob, the police elite troops. Brimob forces were trying
to arrest a notorious Christian militia leader, Berty Loupatty, who turned out to be a
gang leader working as an informer for Kopassus. Two people from each side, were
hospitalised with gunshot wounds. In the past three years, clashes between security
forces have happened with such frequency that it has been impossible to hide the
problem.
The longer the conflict in Maluku continues, the greater is the likelihood of armed
conflicts occurring with the involvement of security officers on both sides. The
economy of Maluku has basically become a war economy with members of the
security forces playing the dominant role. Everywhere illegal tax and fees are levied.
People who need to travel from one district to the other can only do so under the
protection of the security forces. Illegal business like gambling, prostitution, illegal
logging and drugs trafficking is thriving while the trade in small arms and ammunition
has also become a source of income for the military.
A comprehensive solution?
It is not easy to find a quick solution to the conflict in Maluku. At the grassroots level
there is a feeling of war-weariness and a genuine desire to end the hostilities between
the two communities. Eruptions of violence are the work of extremist elements on
both sides but have been contained, without retaliation from the other side. But at the
same time the physical segregation of both communities has created alienation and a
sense of distrust between the two communities.
The vicious attack on Soya came after the RMS anniversary on 25 April when the
RMS flag was flown attached to balloons in several places in Ambon. Soya, a
Christian bastion, is located on the slopes of a mountain and is not easily accessible
for outsiders. Only professional soldiers like Kopassus combat soldiers would have
been able to launch an attack, which is exactly what happened. Eyewitnesses say
the attackers wore military fatigues and covered their faces. Twelve people were killed
and dozens more were injured.
At an earlier stage in the conflict, the Christian community would have retaliated but a
better understanding of the background of the attack calmed the community down.
The recent release of Jafar Umar Thalib from prison to house arrest resulted in a huge
bomb explosion in the market place of Ambon, one of the locations where Muslim
traders have started setting up their stalls again for both communities.
While there is a better understanding of the nature of the conflict and a desire not to
be provoked by hardliners, it is also true that bitterness and anger still linger on in
both communities, fuelled by the losses in each community, the death of loved ones,
husbands, mothers and children. It will take time to heal the wounds helped by the
present conducive situation of willingness to reconcile. Extreme elements from both
sides will continue to conduct acts of terror and attempts to provoke the population.
Economic interests have also become a major reason why the extreme groups on
both sides want to maintain the conflict.
Maluku seen from Jakarta
The situation in Jakarta remains unclear. President Megawati seems to have no
interest in Malukan affairs. While she was vice-president under Wahid she was in
charge of resolving the Maluku tragedy but failed woefully. The man in charge of
Malukan affairs is retired Lt. General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), the
Co-ordinating Minister for Politics and Security, a very ambitious man and a likely
running mate of Megawati in the 2004 presidential election. While SBY projects the
acceptable face of Jakarta, the military simply want to rule over Maluku in their own
way. It is not clear whether the hardliner wings of the military are willing to drop their
political and logistic support for the militia groups and whether SBY and/or the TNI
headquarters are willing or able to create a conducive situation in which civil society in
Maluku is able to continue with their reconciliation activities. Experience during the
past three years gives no grounds for optimism but there are hope! ful signs that civil
society is re-emerging in many parts of Maluku. *
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